This is a good adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic, showing in visceral detail the seemingly relentless and pointless horror of the First World War. The cinematography is superb and the main cast plays their part well enough that their inevitable demise is genuinely heartbreaking. However, I have to take exception to the expansion that this film does in portraying efforts to end the war on the part of Matthias Erzberger. Not only does it portray the German delegation as perhaps better than they actually were, by moving focus away from the men on the ground to diplomats far away, the film undermines the whole point of an old veteran's dramatization of the narrow focus of a grunt's life in the trenches. Trying to put a far-reaching historical context on senseless violence was the exact opposite intention of the source material, and what's more, playing up the tired cliche of a mouthpiece character warning the Allies of the dangers of the Treaty of Versailles's alleged Carthaginian peace — an increasingly challenged position as Germany's culpability and capacity to meet the treaty's requirements becomes better understood — is beyond its scope. This was not a book about war as geopolitics, but about the psychological impact of conflict on all soldiers, even those who make it home. Why bloat the film with scenes of Daniel Bruhl looking scared and exasperated and excise, for example, the essential scene of Paul returning home to find himself a Stranger in a Familiar Land?
All in all, a good anti-war film, but unworthy of such effusive praise. The 1930 version was better, if only because it didn't try to cram in new material outside the source. A tighter allegiance to Remarque's work, instead of generic "Versailles was bad" pablum would have been to the film's overall benefit.
Film Very good, but needlessly expanded from the source.
This is a good adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic, showing in visceral detail the seemingly relentless and pointless horror of the First World War. The cinematography is superb and the main cast plays their part well enough that their inevitable demise is genuinely heartbreaking. However, I have to take exception to the expansion that this film does in portraying efforts to end the war on the part of Matthias Erzberger. Not only does it portray the German delegation as perhaps better than they actually were, by moving focus away from the men on the ground to diplomats far away, the film undermines the whole point of an old veteran's dramatization of the narrow focus of a grunt's life in the trenches. Trying to put a far-reaching historical context on senseless violence was the exact opposite intention of the source material, and what's more, playing up the tired cliche of a mouthpiece character warning the Allies of the dangers of the Treaty of Versailles's alleged Carthaginian peace — an increasingly challenged position as Germany's culpability and capacity to meet the treaty's requirements becomes better understood — is beyond its scope. This was not a book about war as geopolitics, but about the psychological impact of conflict on all soldiers, even those who make it home. Why bloat the film with scenes of Daniel Bruhl looking scared and exasperated and excise, for example, the essential scene of Paul returning home to find himself a Stranger in a Familiar Land?
All in all, a good anti-war film, but unworthy of such effusive praise. The 1930 version was better, if only because it didn't try to cram in new material outside the source. A tighter allegiance to Remarque's work, instead of generic "Versailles was bad" pablum would have been to the film's overall benefit.